Shell of What Once Was
by PyroTheWereCat
Summary: Tom Cotter lives to help people. He is almost painfully nonviolent. So when a horrible car accident forces him to search for help on foot, the sheer violence of Silent Hill shocks him. And now he can't leave. Will Tom gain the courage to fight back?
1. Prologue

A/N: This is going to be very short so, yeah. Sorry. ^^;

_._

_"Here I go," Tom murmured as he exited his apartment on the day of the big trip. He had been planning this vacation for a long time, several months in fact. Tom was going to the small tourist town of Silent Hill for the week to relax, get away from the city life of South Ashfield. It wasn't so much that Tom disliked the city, more of that he needed a break from his routine for awhile._

_Tom liked driving. He drove for a living so it was a good thing he enjoyed it. He liked leaving the windows open to ruffle his hair and listening to the wheels on the pavement. But sometimes when Tom was driving and it wasn't an emergency, he tended to lose focus..._

_SCREEEEEEEEECH! _

_._

A/N: Just a little "how things got started" thingie. Tom is a good person, he can just be a little airheaded sometimes. Like any good SH protagonist.


	2. Chapter 1

_A/N: Back! Fun fact about SoWOW: Entirely inspired by the soundtrack of SH4. With one song from 3 (Lost Carol)._

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"Ugghhh, my head..." Tom groaned as he came to slumped over the steering wheel of his green Ford sedan. Squeeing his eyes shut against the pain, he sat up, pressing a palm to his aching head. Once his back was touching the seat he pulled the hand away, opening his eyes to see if the impact had drawn blood. Though his vision still blurred he could see the dark red smears on his fingers.

"Damn..." As his mind slowly rebooted, Tom began to remember what had happened to him.

_I was driving...on my way to Silent Hill...another car...I had drifted into the other lane..._

Realization hit him like a shovel.

"Shit!" he hissed, clumsily shouldering the door open and falling onto the pavement. He scrambled to his feet and hurried to the car he had collided with, an old red Honda. The driver was buckled tightly to her seat, her head drooping limply with her dark hair covering her face. Tom tugged on the door handle but it was locked. Bracing himself, he ran to the passenger side and slammed his elbow into the window. The sound jarred the woman awake and Tom quickly unlocked the door so he could get to her.

"Ma'am?" he called, "Are you okay?" She stared at him from under her thick bangs, a deer in headlights. Tom's heart faltered at the amount of blood dripping from her face. But still he kept his cool.

"I'm going to get help for you," he told her, "Just stay where you are. Do you understand?" The woman moaned softly and let her head fall back against the seat. Tom got out of the car and raced back to his. He seached the floor desperately for his phone but could not for the life of him find it. _Crap_, he thought, _there's no time_. He backed out onto the street and studied his surroundings. It was foggy (when had that happened?) but Tom could make out a sign on the side of the road:

**Welcome to Silent Hill**

_Looks like I'm going on foot_, he resolved, _I've got to get help_. He forced his shaking legs to move as he made his way toward the town. The closer he got to his destination the thicker the fog became. Tom picked up the pace. By the time he reached the first buildings he was running as fast as he could. But something wasn't right...The streets were completely void of people and the cars looked...abandoned. Tom stopped running.

"Hello?" he called into the swirling white mist, "Is anybody here? I need help! Somebody!" But no one answered him. "What the hell is going on here?" he wondered.

Tom wandered the streets for what felt like hours, searching unsuccessfully for any signs of life. He felt the chill of danger...like something was going to leap out of the fog in front of him at any moment. Then suddenly a shrill scream exploded from the silence. Tom whipped his head toward the sound. As quickly as it appeared, the scream vanished into the whiteness.

"Hello?" No response. Driven by his need to help, Tom changed direction to investigate the noise. His drive brought him to an auto repair shop's garage, the door already half opened.

"Hello?" he called again, "Is someone there?" He ducked under the door, keeping a hand against the wall to his left. "Hello?" As he moved his hand brushed against a metal shelf. He could feel the hard plastic of a small flashlight and quickly pulled it towards himself, fumbling for the switch. Bright white light briefly blinded him as he found it and accidentally had it aimed at his eyes. While the spots faded from his sight, Tom heard shuffling footsteps fast approaching him.

"Hello? Who is that?" No answer. "My name is Tom Cotter; I had a car accident just outside the town. There's another driver back there. She's hurt pretty bad. Can you-" He gasped, unable to finish his sentence. The spots were gone and in their place stood a very inhuman-looking _thing_, shuffling its toeless feet towards Tom. It stood upright on two legs like a human but its knees were bent backwards and its back was horribly disfigured, forcing the creature to be permanently hunched over. The creature's skin was mostly a pale whitish tone but streaked with blood red splotches. It had a gaping, toothless mouth with what looked like a broken jaw and no eyes to speak of. It was completely hairless and had no ears or nose. Its arms were extremely thin with hanging skin around the elbows and its hands had very sharp claw-like phalanges. Tom's jaw dropped at the sight of this thing...this _monster_...and he stumbled back. The creature continued to approach, hissing menachingly. Its clawed hands twitched and it jerked its head to one side as if sizing Tom up as an opponent...or prey. Tom's eyes swept the garage in an attempt to find a weapon. _There!_ On the shelf he had found the flashlight on, there were a variety of tools including a bumping hammer used for popping out minor dents in cars. Tom grabbed hold of the hammer just as the creature lunged at him. Yelping in surprise, Tom swung the hammer blindly, cringing away at the same time. He heard the crunching of bone as the tool connected with the thing's spindly arm and the subsequent shriek of pain. Opening his eyes, Tom saw the thing twitching and pawing at its now useless left arm. _It's distracted! _he thought and used the small opportunity to dash under the door into the fog outside. He kept running until his lungs ached and he could move no more. He spit onto the sidewalk as he leaned against a brick building, trying to catch his breath.

"What the hell," he panted, "was _that_?" And from the faint screeches coming from all directions, Tom could tell that he was about to see more. _Somebody, please..._ he thought, his forehead wrinkling with fear,

_...help me..._

_._

_A/N: Gaaaaaaaah, lame first chapter. It will get better, I promise. So Tommy's an interesting boy, isn't he? Running away from the monster instead of killing it? Tsk tsk. This should be fun._


	3. Chapter 2

_A/N: A bit more about our Tommy boy. He really is a sweetheart 3._

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Until he could calm down and think things through rationally, Tom took refuge in a (thankfully unlocked and monster-free) diner. He slid into a booth gently, every inch of his body shaking as if he had been encased in ice. Realizing he still had a death grip on the bumping hammer, he quickly dropped it onto the table in front of him, releasing a sound of shocked disgust. _I...hurt something_, he thought, running his hands through his shaggy brown hair. _But_, he then reasoned, _it was about to kill me. There was no mistaking that._ But what _was_ the thing he had seen back in the garage? There was no creature on Earth that looked quite like that. Tom had to put a name on it, make it less terrifying to think about. And terrifying it was...pale, emaciated, deformed...and with very sharp claws. The way it was bent almost double...It gave Tom morbid imagery of some horribly mutated bird attempting to care for its young. _Though_, he thought, _the claws defeat the purpose._ Still he felt he should go with his gut, especially given the current situation. He would call them:

_Nurturers._

It was ironic to say the least but naming the beasts took a little of their edge off. Thinking always calmed Tom down, even in the worst possible scenario. He could always keep his head together and out of shock by taking a moment to think things over. It probably wasn't a good idea that he worked in an ambulance but hey, it paid the bills.

"Okay..." he whispered, running his hands over his scalp several times more, "Okay, okay, okay, okay..." Tom rose from his seat and his hand brushed against the items he'd left on the table. The flashlight he knew he would need so he slipped it into his chest pocket. But the hammer took some heavy consideration. Tom knew the time would come again for him to defend himself, and though he felt a deep inner turmoil for inflicting pain, he knew he had to put his morals on a back burner in order to survive. _Those monsters must have killed or driven away everyone in the town. I'll need to get help from Brahams or Shepherd's Glen._ Tom moved to the door, steadying himself before entering the Fog World once more. _Either way I need to help that poor woman. She's counting on me..._With one final deep breath Tom opened the door and let the mist swallow him.

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_A/N: Fun fact: Nurturers are the bastard love children of the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth and Numb Bodies. XDDD_


	4. Chapter 3

Tom, now aware of the monsters roaming the streets, cautiously made his way back to the highway. As he dodged several Nurturers on the way he considered his options. Shepherd's Glen was a good deal closer than Brahams but Brahams boasted the famous police force, known throughout the state of Maine to immediately jump on a problem. _But_, Tom reasoned, _if Shepherd's Glen is normal I can use a phone there. _On the other hand...If Shepherd's Glen was closer it might be affected by the same foggy limbo Silent Hill was in._ I'll have to carry that woman to wherever I'm going. I'll take my chances with Shepherd's Glen. _Tom saw the road leading to the highway and began running. In hindsight, he probably should have walked to conserve his energy for the long hike with the addition of the injured woman's weight. But the thoughts of the future eluded him and he could only focus on the present, the _right now._ Tom ran half blind through the fog, not paying attention to his feet at all...

"Shit!" He clumsily skidded to a stop, nearly flying straight off the edge of the _enormous cave-in_ that was definitely _not_ there before. Tom watched in both horror and relief as his bumping hammer (which had fallen from his hand while he tried to stop himself) clattered down into the opaque whiteness below. Panting from surprise and exertion, he knelt at the edge of he sheer drop, staring into the abyss incredulously. _That could have been me..._

"What is this? What the hell is going on here?" he muttered. A loud ape-like roar echoed from within the town. Tom stiffened but forced himself to stand and face what he had been running from. _That didn't sound like a Nurturer_, he thought nervously. The roar came again, this time closer. Whatever this thing was, it was big and dangerous and it knew where he was. Tom swallowed hard, feeling a cold lump of fear in his throat. He was defenseless without his hammer and this thing could obviously smell him through the thick mist which left Tom so blind. He felt like a child...lost, scared, confused, and so very small. He felt his knees begin to buckle when the new creature's enormous silhouette slowly took shape as it approached. And Tom nearly fainted when it was close enough to see properly. The thing was around eight feet tall and had charred, ashen looking skin. Its body was very small and thin with long, spindly legs but its arms more than made up for that. The arms were about as long as the rest of its body and formed large, lumpy clubs where hands ought to have been. The thing had no face but somehow it continued to growl deep in its chest. Tom instinctively took a step back but remembered he could go no further when his foot slipped on the loose rocks around the edge of the cave-in. The monster sniffed the air with a non-existent nose and released another deafening roar. Tom blanched and gave a tiny involuntary whimper. The creature suddenly barreled forward and lifted an arm to swing at him. Terrified, Tom did the only thing he could..._He jumped out of the way._ The monster's momentum was too great and it could not stop itself in time. The howl of primal fear as it fell shook Tom to his core and he could not bear to watch it bounce off the rocks below. The sound of it all was too much in its own. He instead curled into a sort of fetal position, trembling, until the sound was gone. Even then it was difficult to get up and move. His entire body felt like loose rubber, folding in on itself when he tried to stand. What was this place? Why were there monsters in place of people? _Why couldn't Tom leave?_

"No," he whispered, trying very hard not to vomit, "I can't do it like this..." _I need to find help for that girl before it's too late._ He straightened himself and, holding his head up with as much bravery as he could manage, began his surely perilous journey into Silent Hill.

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_A/N: XP, I thought of you with the trembling part, meine Schwester Arthur. Response shout out~!_


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